Ming Cheng saw the moment that the ghost had vanished from its place, sitting outside near the door. He itched to follow it, but stayed exactly where he was.
"No, that's stupid. There's no such thing as immortals!" Qi Qing proclaimed loudly, crossing her arms for a split second, before her eyes suddenly went wide.
Her head whipped around to look side to side, checking that nobody had seen her shun her workload, just in case. She blushed a bright red, heat settling in her cheeks, as she settled back down to pick up the knife that she, and only she, had been trusted with, to continue peeling the fruit and cutting off more of the unsavoury looking leaves and parts of the vegetables.
"Yeah there is!" Qi Tao cried out in response, throwing his hands up uncaring," There are immortals and they live on the mountains in the North. A-Yuan found a book about them. Tell her!"
Wang Yuan looked down at the piles of vegetables that Qi Qing had sliced and peeled, sorting them all out into different pans for different dishes that all required differing quantities and different vegetables.
He did not reply to Qi Tao's statement, but instead merely tugged at his twin sister's clothing and looked at her for a few moments, pleading with her with the unseen expression on his face that Ming Cheng couldn't see from where he kneeled.
He was slightly comforted by the fact that Qi Qing also couldn't see the face that her friend was making, considering that she did not deign to look around to see it, brushing him off with a shrug of her shoulders.
"A-Cheng, do you believe me? Do you believe A-Yuan? Please tell me! Please! Please! Please!" Qi Tao pleaded, throwing himself forwards and grabbing both of Ming Cheng's hands, shaking them back and forth as his teary face came close to Ming Cheng's, all semblance of respect for personal boundaries gone.
Ming Cheng froze up at the contact, unsure how to react to it.
The water that was in the large bowl beside him was silent, no longer rushing against the sides of the wood and creating splashing or crashing noises.
He was hyper of aware of all the placements of Qi Tao's fingers, brushing over the sides of his hands, the warmth of his skin, and the pressure that was exerted by his palms on Ming Cheng's bones.
What was he supposed to do?
How was he supposed to react?
Was he supposed to agree, nodding along and smiling, to get Qi Tao to get back to work?
Or was he meant to give his honest opinion?
Friends were meant to be honest with each other and foster close ties with each other through honesty. Would it harm his friendship if he made something up instead?
Ming Cheng didn't have a single opinion on immortals. He didn't know that he was supposed to have opinions of immortals. What was a normal stance on their existence?
Was he supposed to outright denounce them like Qi Qing, or was he supposed to wholesale believe in them and what they represented?
"I- I," Ming Cheng began, ready to simply announce that he had no idea, backing out of the question entirely until he could maybe ask Lan Chang for some information and then figure something out.
He could do this.
He could do this.
"A-Tao, let him go. Can't you see that he's uncomfortable?" Qi Qing suddenly interjected, snapping Ming Cheng out from his state.
Qi Tao immediately let him go and turned to his sister, ready to retort until she glared at him.
He turned back to Ming Cheng and saw that his skin had whitened by at least three shades by the shock and fear that he had apparently inflicted upon him, stark and unmissable considering the tanned skin that Ming Cheng normally wore.
Ming Cheng took in deep breaths, calming himself down as the focus of the group was no longer on him, free to not be answering anymore questions on topics that he didn't know anything about.
He was keenly aware of the new disconnect between him and the rest of the trio that he was currently sat with, seeing them all interact and discuss a topic that he was completely clueless about and couldn't contribute anything on.
Ming Cheng turned his body back to the pot, plunging his hands in more aggressively than maybe necessary to do, going back to washing the vegetables that he had been given, trying to ignore the burning looks that all the others were giving him, feeling his own cheeks heat slightly up, just like Qi Qing's had done before.
He was glad now for his long hair, that helped keep his face hidden from their gazes.
He just wanted to ignore what had just happened and forget this incident ever happened.
Then everybody could back to the easy chatter that had dominated the conversation before, and he could go back to thinking about the ghost that had been following him and telling him all sorts of things.
"I'm sorry," Qi Tao, almost pleaded out, keeping his distance from Ming Cheng.
He lifted his head up, the false tears in his eyes gone, but his mouth now properly drooping, hands lowered on his lap and folded up neatly.
Ming Cheng paused for a second, and turned to face him.
"Your forgiven," he quickly replied, a knee jerk reaction to having to hear so many apologies from the time that he had spent on the streets.
Qi Tao had nothing to apologise for, after all.
It was Ming Cheng's ignorance that caused this situation.
"Really! You do!" Qi Tao cried out, a big smile stretching out on his face as he rubbed his eyes dry with his sleeve.
"Yes," Ming Cheng answered him stiffly, slightly aback at the quick, almost instantaneous change in the other boy's attitude.
There was no other answer to give.
Wang Yuan, however, watching the whole scene in front of him, understood.